If you were a boy growing up in the late ’80s or early ’90s, you may have a crush on Winnie Cooper as me. I had been bearing her, the object of Fred Savage’s obsession on “The Wonder Years”, in mind constantly for a long long time. The nostalgia-fueled sitcom has been off the air since ‘93, but Ms. McKellar still has legions of fans.
Today, most of us are heartbroken. Our fair Winnie is officially off the market. Yep, this past weekend, she got married. The nuptials caused a huge surge in Search. Men pushed queries on “Danica McKellar married” and “Winnie cooper married” through the roof. McKellar, who is now an author and mathematician, also saw queries rise on her famed photo spread for Stuff Magazine. Searches on the groom, composer Mike Verta, also hit a high note. Not surprisingly, the majority of Danica’s lookups came from male Gen-Xers.
Born in La Jolla, California, McKellar moved with her family to Los Angeles when she was eight. Her family is “a big mix of Western Europe.” Her mother’s ancestry is Portuguese via the Azores and Madeira islands and her father’s ancestry is Scottish, French, German and Dutch. McKellar and sister Crystal McKellar both maintained professional acting careers as children, but with a strong emphasis on education as a priority. As a result, Crystal became a lawyer, and Danica majored in mathematics in college.
McKellar is famous for the leading role in The Wonder Years, an Emmy Award–winning American television comedy-drama that ran for six seasons on ABC, from 1988 to 1993. The pilot aired on January 31, 1988 after ABC’s coverage of Super Bowl XXII. In an episode entitled “The Accident” and in the final episode, it is stated that every important event in Kevin’s life somehow involved Winnie. She lives on the same block as Kevin. Their first kiss plays an important part of the pilot episode, as does her older brother’s death while serving as a soldier in the Vietnam War. In one episode, her parents decide to get separated because of their grief over the death of their son. According to the epilogue in the final episode, Winnie studies art history in Paris. Kevin and Winnie write one letter to each other every week for eight years until her return. Despite their life-long romance, they never marry.
She had a little “bumpy” transition from child actor to adult actor. Since leaving The Wonder Years, McKellar has had several guest roles in television series, and has written and directed two short films. She briefly returned to regular television with a recurring role in the 2002–03 season of The West Wing, portraying Elsie Snuffin, the sister and assistant of Deputy White House Communications Director Will Bailey.
Far more than that as an actress, McKellar has achieved greatly in other fields such as mathematics, her major, and writing.
She studied mathematics at UCLA. At that time, she became a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She graduated summa cum laude in 1998. As an undergraduate, she coauthored a scientific paper with Professor Lincoln Chayes and fellow student Brandy Winn. Their results are termed the ‘Chayes-McKellar-Winn theorem’ Referring to the mathematical abilities of his coauthor students, Chayes was quoted in the New York Times as saying, “I thought that the two were really, really first-rate.”
Another role is the author of the book Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail, which encourages girls in middle school to enjoy and succeed at mathematics. The book has been favorably reviewed by Tara C. Smith, the founder of Iowa Citizens for Science and a professor of epidemiology at the University of Iowa. In an interview with Smith, McKellar said that she wrote the book “to show girls that math is accessible and relevant, and even a little glamorous” and to counteract “damaging social messages telling young girls that math and science aren’t for them”. McKellar’s second book, Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss , was released on August 5, 2008. The book’s target audience is girls in the 7th through 9th grades. As of September 23, 2008, both of McKellar’s books have held steady on the New York Times bestseller list - in the top 10.
McKellar was named Person of the Week on World News with Charles Gibson for the week ending August 10, 2007. The news segment highlighted her book Math Doesn’t Suck and her efforts to help girls develop an interest in mathematics, especially during the middle school years.
However, all those have passed already, and she has got married now. The just one figure in our mind is Winnie Cooper in “The Wonder Years”.
Related posts
Tags: Danica McKellar, fans, marriage